DHAKA, April 19: Bangladeshi exporters heaved a sigh of relief after the war in Iraq proved to be short-lived, reports Dhaka’s financial daily, the Financial Express on Friday.
Garments exporters, who presumed a prolonged war and a subsequent dip in consumer spending in the US and Europe, the destination of some 90 per cent of the country’s export, said the situation has improved remarkably over the last few days.
“In the last week, things have picked up quite well. If the trend continues, the apparel sector can make up for the damage inflicted by the Iraq war,” reportedly said the president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) Kazi Moniruzzaman.
The knitwear exporters, who had so far had a good year, said some orders cancelled during the Iraq war have already been revived and the sector as a whole weathered the storm gracefully. “There have been some revival of orders during the past week. But unless things pick up further, we cannot say whether we could contain the damage,” claimed the president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) Manjurul Haq.
Both Moniruzzaman and Haq, however, expressed the fear that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) could pose yet another threat to the country’s export as the American and Canadian buyers are now reluctant to visit the country. “The American buyers visit Bangladesh via Hong Kong and Singapore, which are now badly affected by the deadly SARS virus. As a result, buyers are now not interested in visiting this part of the world,” said Moniruzzaman.
Similar reactions came from the exporters of frozen food and leather, the second and third largest export items of the country. Sources in the Bangladesh Frozen Food Exporters Association (BFFEA) said none of their export orders were cancelled during the Iraq war. “Overall, the situation is much better than what we had earlier anticipated,” said a source in the BFFEA.
Businessmen, who export vegetables to the Middle East constituting a fragment of country’s export basket, have also sounded optimistic of a positive turnaround of fortune after exports to Kuwait resumed last week. “The problems we faced initially are gone. If the trend continues, we can end the year on a happy note,” a leader of the vegetable exporters association Mohammad Mansur told newsmen at the FBCCI on Wednesday.
A top official of Bismillah Airways, the second largest air cargo carriers to the Middle East, said the export of vegetables and other goods in the region have increased in recent times, prompting them to charter planes and cargo space to meet the growing demand.
The exporters of raw jute said the war hardly had impact on their buoyant export while the BJMC and jute goods exporters said the damage was confined mostly to countries within the Middle East.
According to the secretary of the Bangladesh Jute Association, Sirajul Islam Prodhan, till March 15 this fiscal, raw jute export increased by around 20 per cent. “Frankly, the war did not cost us much,” said Prodhan.
President of the Bangladesh Jute Goods Association Shahedul Islam, however, said they lost all their export orders of finished jute goods and yarn in Iran, Turkey and Syria.
